Purism Shows Off The Librem 5 Linux Smartphone In Action

Now that the first (beta-ish) batch of Librem 5 smartphones is shipping, Purism has published the first video showing the phone in its current state in action.

The 30 second video simply shows the phone being unlocked and some basic interactions with their GTK/Wayland-based shell, briefling launching their web browser, opening GNOME Software, and opening their messaging/contacts program. It's a very brief video given the software stack is still a work-in-progress on performance and features. Likewise with their graphics driver supporting GL2 right now, don't expect any games or really fancy graphics running.

It does look better than expected for the initial batch of the Librem 5's shipping, but difficult to evaluate the overall user experience given the very brief recording. Also still no word on battery yet for the privacy-minded smartphone at this stage.

The Librem 5 is powered by an i.MX8 quad-core SoC with 3GB of RAM, 32GB eMMC, 720x1440 display, 802.11n WiFi, and costs $699 USD. The phone has begun shipping in batches over the months ahead with improving hardware/software quality while they hope at the end of 2020 to be able to introduce their polished and revved Librem 5 smartphone.